Video: McCain says he wouldn’t vote for his immigration bill now

posted at 9:16 pm on January 30, 2008 by Allahpundit

A flip flop after the uproar over his answer on Meet the Press, or was his response there simply misconstrued? I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. For the record, he too now agrees that McCain-Kennedy was, if not a piece of shinola, at least a bit too “nuanced” for the American public’s palate.

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He wouldn’t vote for it now but that didn’t stop him from trying to shove it down the American public’s throats.
So what’s worse flip flopping or trying to force feed the American people a pile of steamy monkey crapola known as McLame Kennedy amnesty.

Not a chance! McCain spent the night talking out of both sides of his mouth. It wasn’t just on imigration either. He also is saying he would apoint justices like Alito, whereas earlier this week he indicated that he was not for more judges like Alito.

He is a smug creep that doesn’t belong on that stage.

I saw the CNN audience tracking. When McCain stoped talking about leadership and they asked Ron Paul a question the audience dials actualy went up for Ron Paul. Most of the night Ron Paul spent below the halfway line, but after listening to so much of McCain’s crap he was a breath of fresh air.

Mitt Romney was consistently rated high by the audience on his responses. He spent a lot of time pushing the 90 line. Apparently he still has plenty of fans out there.

I don’t know if this debate was enough to start another turnaround for Mitt, but it had to help him with the real conservatives.

I didn’t watch the debate. I turned it on just in time to hear McCain say Reagan wouldn’t have endorsed a flipflopper. My question to McCain is prior to the shamnesty debacle, what was it exactly that made him (and others) think they could ram it through? Did he think we weren’t paying attention? Did he care? Did he think he wasn’t required to get an opinion from the people he represented? What was his thinking before we made a stink? That is what I want him to explain to me.

Nope, I refuse to participate in this remanufacturing of Juan McCain into something that he has never been and never will be. Rudy’s out so all his supporters are now attempting to join the propoganda machine for Juan in an effort to fool conservatives into believing that Juan McCain is really a Republican.

NO SALE! Juan is still a Democrat attempting to get the GOP nomination! He wouldn’t even be a Republican except for the fact he was elected from Arizona. Pack sand you sophists! Jaun is still a left-of-center Democrat posing as a Republican. I intend to point this out as long as it takes to prevent Juan from getting the GOP nomination. One “rat” in the race is enough and Juan is definitely a “rat.”

In regards to the Irag troop withdrawal question, McCain and advisors must have held a pre debate meeting and decided that the buzz word would be ‘timetable’. I lost count during the exchange on troop withdrawal how many times the old man muttered the word ‘timetable’ with no
context. What a moron !!

I’ve grown to like him. The question I have is, if he doesn’t win the nomination, how can conservatives best use him?

Spirit of 1776 on January 30, 2008 at 9:50 PM

His real life experience in a state “laboratory” on the unavoidable issue of health-care reform. Most notably, using jiu-jitsu to transform it from a liberal entitlement to a grown up personal responsibility.

Yeah, I just donated to Mitt again today. He needs to know he has support. He can use the funds to take this fight to all the Feb. 5 states. We need to produce a good President and Mitt is our best chance to do that this cycle. I want to be part of keeping America vibrant, and Mitt can lead that charge for this generation.

Did Juan Hernandez stomp out of team McCain when he said he would not vote for amnesty?

If he did not, I do not believe the Senator.

EJDolbow on January 30, 2008 at 9:45 PM

Most astute comment of this debate. McFlipp is getting a pass from the MSM now, but they will surely nail him on it down the road. Also the squadron leader = econonmic leadership question was pathetic. He has no clue on economics.

As Rush said again today…..”not sure my vote for McCain would matter, if you know what I mean….” Rush always speaks volumes in one sentence.

I’ll never give him the benefit of the doubt. Every time I have even thought about giving him the benefit of the doubt, I have gotten another knife in the back.

Even if he fired Hernandez and Perenchio and chased them out of their offices with a whip I wouldn’t give him the benefit of the doubt.

LegendHasIt on January 30, 2008 at 9:26 PM

LegendHasIt, you analysis is faulty. The problem here is not that McCain has “flip-flopped”. The problem is that he hasn’t. He’s still an amnesty zealot. His statements to the contrary are transparent lies. If he had “flip-flopped” or “seen the light”, he wouldn’t have hired Hernandez and Perenchio.

I suppose it is easier to accuse someone of “flip-flopping” rather than lying, but one shouldn’t take the lazy, easy course when McCain lies so blatantly. Of course, we should always try to be fair in our interpretations of what people say. We shouldn’t accuse someone of lying at the drop of hat, but when the lying is blatant as evidenced by whom McCain has hired for his campaign, we can feel safe in stating the obvious.

I was too young to follow at the time. Did a good chunk of the Republican party loathe Dole?

Deety on January 30, 2008 at 10:13 PM

It was pretty much accepted from the start that Clinton would win- Republicans had a tough time finding any good candidates who’d take the political risk of entering a campaign they were almost certain to lose.

I’ve noticed several attacks on Bob Dole on this thread. It’s really quite unfair. Bob Dole lost to an excellent campaigner. He certainly pulled no McCain like garbage and he was well-liked by Republicans and viewed as honorable by the more reasonable Democrats. We should honor and respect him for his efforts.

Any McCainamaniacs in the house? I’m curious how you think your guy did? I thought he was terrible, but I’m not a fan.

I think Mitt did really well, but the pundits are saying the “squabbling” will hurt him (anyone see a focus group reading on that?). Huck had a couple of strong moments. At this point, Paul isn’t even running for President. He’s on a gold standard campaign.

Nothing wrong with my analysis.
In fact, for a change, we seem to be pretty much in agreement.

Your disagreement seems to be more with the semantics than the basic idea.

Can we just compromise and call it flip-flopping AND lying?

The flip flop is in what he says for the public’s consumption… The lie is that he is indeed still, and always will be, an open borders, illegal alien advocate, no matter what public position he takes on any given day.

Yeah, nuance. I see no change in his position only a change in what he wants to talk about. Nothing he says rules out amnesty. And he says nothing about the disposition of the people he’s planning amnesty for.
He says the people don’t trust congress to secure the border. He’s way off there. The people have watched the congress and seen that they are determined to not secure the border. I’d have to be out of touch with reality to think congress wants anything but an insecure border.

I’ve noticed several attacks on Bob Dole on this thread. It’s really quite unfair. Bob Dole lost to an excellent campaigner. He certainly pulled no McCain like garbage and he was well-liked by Republicans and viewed as honorable by the more reasonable Democrats. We should honor and respect him for his efforts

I concur. I’ve followed elections since “76″.

I knew the first time I laid eyes on Clinton he was one “Smooth Operator”. Too smooth for my comfort level.

I can’t think of any politico or political organization as dangerously good (when at top of their game) than the Clinton Machine.

What a cop-out. And if he actually were to win the WH, the first thing Dems would do would be to call his bluff by presenting him a bill like that one or as close to it as they could get, just to embarrass and undermine him.

I believe strongly, he has the potential of tearing the Republican Party apart. I am convinced the Democrats and their MSM supporters know this.
MsDollie on January 30, 2008 at 10:56 PM

Of course!
Why else would every lefty from the New York Times to the Los Angeles Times be so ecstatic about McCain’s current winning streak.

Why else would Alan Colmes and just about every other liberal newscaster / commentator be grinning like an idiot every time they talk about Juan McCain?

They love him because he hates the Republican Party as much as they do.

And even though they hate him too, for in general, being a ‘hawk’ it is one of those ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ deals….. at least for as long as he is useful in weakening their common enemy, (which in this case is a somewhat conservative, economically strong, sovereign America).

Not at all, because he’s not saying that he somehow saw the light… he’s simply responding to an outraged public. He repeatedly says that now it’s evident to him that the American people want the border secured first. I think he should have had the common sense to want that done himself and not needed the political wind to blow him away from his original position.

Absolutely not. He’s doing the same thing he does every time this issue is brought up, which is to harp on his “secure the borders first” message. Behind that verbal wall is a labyrinth of amnesty proposals and benefits for illegal aliens. Do you really think he’d have Juan Hernandez on his team if he was tough on illegal immigration? He’s 100% corrupt and deceitful.

True. He’s saying it’s a moot point because it’s clear that the American people won’t let it pass. That’s not flip-flopping; that’s being realistic. He would prefer a more lenient policy, but he’s not going to go against the will of the American people. I think that’s a decent answer, honestly.

And, to be quite honest, the same people talking about him tearing the party apart are the ones who were on the “better dead than anyone-but-Fred!” bandwagon: A very, very small part of the overall party. The Internet is not representative of the Republican coalition, even if it’s closer to the views of Rush. Just like Fred-mania, this too will pass. It won’t be painless, but it will pass.

He was considered a weak effort at opposition to a complete sleazebag of a calculating weasel / amusingly pathological liar (Clinton) who was felt to be more “charismatic” than the monotonous but honest Dole.

The Republicans at the time were too stupid to nominate a serious candidate, and lost.

The Dole-esque repetition with MCain is that he is too weak when facing the slime-machine of the Clintons and too unappealing, to the general voter, to beat the (media generated and desperatedly propped-up) “charisma” of Obama.

Dole was a good guy, but beyond his “sell-by” date for that tough a fight.

McCain is a cranky liar, which makes his chances even more absurd once the media sees him as the R candidate and turns against him with everything they are now hiding about his testy character, his unsavory past and many flaws, political and personal.

No slam against Dole was meant.

But the same path is being plowed by the delusional Republican middle.

Does he agree with his 2005 lawsuit to apply CFR and the FEC regulations to all internet communication (blogs, e-mail, etc.)?

Or has he reversed course on this as well?

HotAir could be in hot water if his lawsuit victory in 2005 had stood… I see all kinds of potential undocumented “in kind” contributions here. Much less the lack of open FEC required communication for any issue ads by some of the bloggers whose names aren’t made public clarifying their support and specifying who it is who has made these statements.

Fredheads have agreed we can’t allow Juan McCain into our White House so, we’ll have to hold our nose to vote Willard in BUT, we will hold him to his current lies of being a conservative for four years…don’t think we won’t.

( We don’t want to hear any crap from him as if we were supporting the scumbag either. )

I’ve noticed several attacks on Bob Dole on this thread. It’s really quite unfair. Bob Dole lost to an excellent campaigner. He certainly pulled no McCain like garbage and he was well-liked by Republicans and viewed as honorable by the more reasonable Democrats. We should honor and respect him for his efforts.

Notice how McCain always says that he knows how to secure the border, because he’s from a border state.

I wish a moderator/interviewer would ask McCain why the Arizona border is NOT secure, despite McCain’s presence in the U.S. Senate for decades. If McCain knows what it takes to secure our border, then why the hell hasn’t he secured it already? What is he waiting for?

It’s no accident that Arizona’s state legislators have been passing some of the toughest anti-illegal immigration laws in the country. The state has been forced to do this because the FEDERAL government’s refusal to secure our border has led to Arizona being overrun with illegal aliens. McCain, who for years has been in a position to do something to help, has done nothing. Yet in every interview or debate where he is asked about illegal immigration, he responds with his “I’m from a border state and I know how to secure our borders” crap — and it always goes unchallenged. Why do they keep letting him get away with this kind of nonsense?

AZCoyote: To ask him that is an invitation for him to give us all a big grandiose McCainiac speech about how our borders are a federal matter as describe in the Constitution. It’s one of the actual powers the Federal Government does have as opposed to the torpid, fronts for industry like the Department of Interior or Department of Energy.

McCain would love to be asked this question. It would just invite him to go on and on about why a comprehensive approach is the only approach.

Don’t forget that McCain and Kay Bailey Hutchison put the death nail in the Secure Border Fence Act after they lost the Comprehensive Amnesty Bill. It was all window dressing and they had no intention of building the fence.

Romney could have hit a home run when McCain said “We all support stopping Illegal Immigration”. (BS)

He could have illustrated that only just 5 miles of the the 854 miles of double-layer border fence mandated by the Secure Fence Act of 2006 has been built and that a double layer fence had not been built mandated by Act. He could have asked McCain why he had not ensured the fence was being built and why he supported Hutchinson’s Amendment to stop the fence.

McCain voted for the Hutchison Amendment.

In addition, he could have asked why he has a foreigner on his campaign committee and use McCain\ Feingold to clean his clock about foreign influence in our elections.

Juan McCain is a Liar and Traitor that should have been exposed easily last night but Romney was being too nice.